Posner Takes Everyone to Task
by James Prescott • Aug 18th, 2008 at 2:25 pm • 6 comments
Richard Posner, Seventh Circuit Judge and senior lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School, recently wrote a column in the New Republic decrying the Heller decision, comparing it unfavorable o other notable Supreme Court cases like Roe. This is especially noteworthy since Posner is a noted “conservative” judge and Heller was a “conservative” decision. Of particular interest, at least to me, was that Posner argues that Heller curtails federalism. Anyway, I thought this line of thought was interesting.
Comment by Brandon Ruiz on 18 August 2008 at 4:09 pm:
Y’know every once in a while this guy doesn’t make me want to vomit and I kinda like him. Even when he does, his analysis is pretty persuasive. Ironically he’s calling for contextualizing the amendment which sort of seems to be anathema to conservatives of all stripes.
Comment by Brandon Ruiz on 18 August 2008 at 4:17 pm:
One thing I have to disagree with him strongly on is his proposed solution to not liking the laws where you are: Move! That’s stupid. Moving is expensive and not everyone can just pick up and move on a moment’s notice, especially poor people. Libertarianism is the political philosophy of the rich, white, suburban, man.
Comment by tet on 19 August 2008 at 10:41 am:
Uh, Brandon, traditionally it’s not been the comfortable, rich white guys who did the moving–it’s been the disadvantaged, the oppressed, and the hopeless. Take a look at the statistics of past migrations and immigrations. There’s a reason that the poem talks about “your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free.”
I mean, seriously, are you telling me that the folks coming here from Mexico right now are white dentists and lawyers? Maybe we’re talking about the thirties, when thousands of rich white stockbrokers packed their roadsters and moved to California to pick fruit as described in The Grapes of Wrath?
When things get bad enough, people leave. Sometimes they end up in places that are just as bad (such as the situation where Southern blacks moved to Northern ghettos), but often, as in the case of my and probably your ancestors, they got a better deal than where they were. Moving is a useful and traditional solution to serious problems.
Tom
Comment by Brandon Ruiz on 19 August 2008 at 5:04 pm:
There are different types of movement Tom. When we’re talking about moving for economic desperation, yeah it’s obviously the poor. When we’re talking about mobility for purely ideological reasons it’s different. There’s a whole cottage industry of people taking note of the new global elite (i.e. rich) who are unbounded from any particular place moving from gated community to gated community around the world for economic reasons (i.e. a bigger paycheck) as well as to find more ideologically suitable areas.
Comment by tet on 19 August 2008 at 8:15 pm:
Brandon, my grandfather worked for 23 years in the early 1900s to earn enough money to move his family for “purely ideological reasons”–in his case, to avoid the repercussions of European communism and fascism, which he could tell were eventually going to destroy his homeland.
The Jews in the Zionist movement would often work a lifetime to get enough money to pay the cost of emigration to Palestine so that they could die in the Holy Land–again, done for purely ideological reasons.
You are examining unusual characteristics of the present and assuming that they are representative of the rest of history. While this is a common mistake, it should be avoided when doing analyses.
Many, many people move purely for ideological reasons. The major difference between the rich doing it and the poor doing it is how long it takes to get the money together, not the tendency to do so in the first place. You are, quite simply, wrong. I believe that you’re letting your class-consciousness mislead you in this case.
Tom
Comment by Brandon Ruiz on 23 August 2008 at 7:56 pm:
Actually Tom I was examining the characteristics of the present and assuming they apply to the present and near future. Crazy stuff.